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Weather on the outer planets only goes so deep

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:15:02 -0500

What is the long-range weather forecast for the giant planets Uranus and Neptune? These planets are home to extreme winds blowing at speeds of over 1000 km/hour, hurricane-like storms as large around as Earth, immense weather systems that last for years and fast-flowing jet streams. Both planets feature similar climates, despite the fact that Uranus is tipped on its side with the pole facing the s

Source: Weizmann Institute of Science - Discipline: Space

HiRISE Mars camera reveals hundreds of impacts each year

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:45:02 -0500

Scientists using images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, have estimated that the planet is bombarded by more than 200 small asteroids or bits of comets per year forming craters at least 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) across. Researchers have identified 248 new impact sites on parts of the Martian surface in the past decade, using images from the spacecraft to determine when the craters

Source: University of Arizona - Discipline: Space

'Space Oddity,' in space

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:00:01 -0500

Chris Hadfield has conquered space. Now he's conquering the Internet, too.

Source: CNN - Discipline: Space

New method of finding planets scores its first discovery

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:45:01 -0500

Detecting alien worlds presents a significant challenge since they are small, faint, and close to their stars. The two most prolific techniques for finding exoplanets are radial velocity (looking for wobbling stars) and transits (looking for dimming stars). A team at Tel Aviv University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) has just discovered an exoplanet using a new method th

Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics - Discipline: Astronomy

Monster radiation burst from Sun

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:00:01 -0500

The Sun has unleashed the most powerful eruption - a solar flare - of 2013 so far.

Source: BBC News - Discipline: Space

Why Mercury is a hard orange, not a soft peach

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:00:01 -0500

If Mercury was an orange, the juicy bit would all be dense metallic core, while planets further out would be peaches with pit-like cores – here's why

Source: New Scientist - Discipline: Space

Water on moon, Earth came from same primitive meteorites

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:30:01 -0500

The water found on the moon, like that on Earth, came from small meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites in the first 100 million years or so after the solar system formed, researchers from Brown and Case Western Reserve universities and Carnegie Institution of Washington have found.

Source: Case Western Reserve University - Discipline: Space

Birth of a black hole

Mon, 06 May 2013 11:30:01 -0500

A new kind of cosmic flash may reveal something never seen before: the birth of a black hole.

Source: California Institute of Technology - Discipline: Astronomy

NASA's Fermi, Swift see 'shockingly bright' burst

Mon, 06 May 2013 11:15:01 -0500

A record-setting blast of gamma rays from a dying star in a distant galaxy has wowed astronomers around the world. The eruption, which is classified as a gamma-ray burst, or GRB, and designated GRB 130427A, produced the highest-energy light ever detected from such an event.

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center - Discipline: Astronomy

Telling time on Saturn

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:00:01 -0500

A University of Iowa undergraduate student has discovered that a process occurring in Saturn's magnetosphere is linked to the planet's seasons and changes with them, a finding that helps clarify the length of a Saturn day and could alter our understanding of the Earth's magnetosphere.

Source: University of Iowa - Discipline: Space

An anarchic region of star formation

Thu, 02 May 2013 17:30:02 -0500

NGC 6559 is a cloud of gas and dust located at a distance of about 5000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). The glowing region is a relatively small object, just a few light-years across, in contrast to the one hundred light-years and more spanned by its famous neighbour, the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8, eso0936 - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0936/). Althoug

Source: ESO - Discipline: Astronomy

First Tunguska Meteorite Fragments Discovered

Thu, 02 May 2013 09:53:37 -0500

Nobody knows what exploded over Siberia in 1908 but the discovery of the first fragments could finally solve the mystery

Source: Technology Review - Discipline: Space

Six years after zero-G flight, Stephen Hawking is still up for a space trip

Thu, 02 May 2013 09:53:37 -0500

It's been six long years since world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking got a taste of weightlessness during a zero-G airplane flight from NASA's Kennedy Space Center — but he still wants to feel the real deal aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane.The 71-year-old Hawking has been living with neurogenerative disease for decades, but his illness hasn't kept him from taking on adventures t...

Source: NBCnews - Discipline: Space

Mars rover Opportunity back in action after glitch

Thu, 02 May 2013 09:53:37 -0500

NASA's venerable Mars rover Opportunity has overcome a glitch that put the robot into standby mode late last month, agency officials announced Wednesday."The Opportunity rover is back under ground control, executing a sequence of commands sent by the rover team," NASA officials wrote in a mission update today. "Opportunity is no longer in standby automode and has resumed...

Source: NBCnews - Discipline: Space

Saturn's youthful appearance explained

Wed, 01 May 2013 16:15:01 -0500

As planets age they become darker and cooler. Saturn however is much brighter than expected for a planet of its age - a question that has puzzled scientists since the late sixties. New research published in the journal Nature Geoscience has revealed how Saturn keeps itself looking young and hot.

Source: University of Exeter - Discipline: Space

Mars Rover Opportunity slips into standby mode, NASA says

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:01:37 -0500

The golf-cart-sized space explorer put itself in standby mode after sensing a problem on April 22 after routine maintenance

Source: CBSNews - Discipline: Space

NASA: Russia charging U.S. $70M per astronaut seat

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:01:37 -0500

NASA is paying $424 million more to get U.S. astronauts into space, and agency is blaming Congress for extra expense

Source: CBSNews - Discipline: Space

Video: Massive storm hits Saturn's North Pole

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:01:37 -0500

NASA scientists say a massive storm on Saturn's North Pole looks just like a hurricane on earth, spinning counter-clockwise. Its eye is 20 times bigger than the ones we see on Earth.

Source: CBSNews - Discipline: Space

The Boomerang Rocket Ship: Shoot It Up, Back It Comes

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:01:37 -0500

SpaceX calls it the "Grasshopper" — it's a rocket that doesn't fall back to Earth haphazardly after launch. It carefully returns itself to the launchpad standing up, right where it started.

Source: NPR - Discipline: Space

End for Herschel space telescope